Amphiphilic Chitosan Bearing Double Palmitoyl Chains and Quaternary Ammonium Moieties as a Nanocarrier for Plasmid DNA.

Amphiphilic chitosan, bPalm-CS-HTAP, having -(2-((2,3-bis(palmitoyloxy)propyl)amino)-2-oxoethyl) (bPalm) groups as double hydrophobic tails and -[(2-hydroxyl-3-trimethylammonium)] propyl (HTAP) groups as hydrophilic heads was synthesized and evaluated for its self-assembly properties and potential as a gene carrier. The degree of bis-palmitoyl group substitution ( ) and the degree of quaternization () were approximately 2 and 56%, respectively. bPalm-CS-HTAP was found to assemble into nanosized spherical particles with a hydrodynamic diameter ( ) of 265.